Stimulus Package - Debate & Discussion

[infinity706]

OK....for Miles...this will make him smile...just the wisdom of it alone.

Good Morning, Suckers
By Peter Ferrara on 1.28.09 @ 6:10AM

Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are playing the voters for fools with the so-called stimulus package. The massive $825 billion package is not even targeted on programs to stimulate the economy. Instead, it is laced with runaway government spending for increased welfare, overgrown bureaucracy, pork, political payoffs, and other waste. That runaway spending is causing record smashing deficits of $1.5 trillion or more, equivalent to over 50% of the entire federal budget for fiscal 2008.

For example, the "stimulus" package includes $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts to help "the arts community throughout the United States." Wouldn't want our economy to get behind in the international arts competition. The government is going to borrow $50 million out of the private economy to spend on this, which will result in a net loss of economic output rather than a net gain.

Another $2.1 billion is for Head Start, another program not previously known for stimulating the economy. A further $2 billion is to be spent on Child Care Development Block Grants, which provide day care. We are going to revive economic growth through the federal government spending billions on babysitting, rather than tax cuts for capital investment. A similar initiative involves $120 million to finance part-time work for seniors in community service agencies.

Then there is $500 million to speed the processing of applications for Social Security disability claims. This has already created one net new job in the employment of a person within the Obama Administration assigned to figure out what this has to do with stimulating the economy.

Another $6 billion goes to college and universities. We already spend hundreds of billions on these schools, and such education provides valuable long-term benefits. But this is not a means to spark a booming economy in the short term. The same is true of the $13 billion in Title I grants "to provide extra academic support to help raise the achievement of students at risk of educational failure or to help all students in high-poverty schools meet challenging State academic standards," as the congressional report accompanying the bill explains. Ditto that for the $13 billion in IDEA, Part B State grants to help pay for "the excess costs of providing special education and related services to children with disabilities."

Then there is the effort to stimulate the economy by increasing welfare spending. There is $20 billion for increased food stamps, including lifting restrictions on how long welfare dependents can receive food stamp benefits. Another $1.7 billion is to be spent to help the homeless, not previously in our history a significant source of economic growth. Another $1 billion goes for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance program, to help low income families pay their heating bills, a worthy objective that has nothing to do with stimulating the economy. Still another billion goes to the Community Services Block Grant to support "employment, food, housing, health, and emergency assistance to low-income families and individuals." Another $200 million goes for senior nutrition programs, such as Meals on Wheels. Then there is an additional $200 million for AmeriCorps, to help satisfy "increased demand for services for vulnerable populations to meet critical needs in communities across the U.S." Another $5 billion is devoted to public housing. None of this increased welfare spending has anything to do with promoting economic growth. Rather, it retards growth by inducing more dependency on government.

Another $87 billion is to be spent on Medicaid, a welfare program already costing roughly $400 billion per year. Those funds would be spent in part on "family planning services," meaning contraception. Reagan created a 25-year economic boom in part by cutting top marginal income tax rates. Liberal Democrats are now going to try to do it by passing out condoms.

Medicaid is one of the major entitlement programs projected to explode to overwhelming costs in the future. Obama is assuring the more conservative Blue Dog Democrats that he will address runaway entitlement costs as soon as next month. But to start let's increase those costs by almost $100 billion right now.

Then there is the funding to maintain and expand bureaucracy and overall big government spending. The "stimulus" package includes $2.5 billion for the National Science Foundation, $2.0 billion for the National Park Service, $650 million for the U.S. Forest Service, $600 million for NASA, $800 million for AMTRAK, $276 million to the State Department to upgrade and modernize its information technology, $150 million for maintenance work at the Smithsonian Institution, $209 million for maintenance work for the Federal Agricultural Research Service, $44 million for repairs and improvements at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Department of Agriculture, and $245 million to upgrade the information technology of the Farm Service Agency. Borrowing money from the private sector to spend on these bureaucracies will not provide a boost to the economy. It will likely again produce a net loss of output.

A shocking provision provides $1.1 billion for so-called federal comparative effectiveness research in regard to health-care services. The congressional report explaining the stimulus bill says:

By knowing what works best and presenting this information more broadly to patients and healthcare professionals, those items, procedures, and interventions that are most effective to prevent, control, and treat health conditions will be utilized, while those that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed.
But a government bureaucracy in Washington is never going to know what "items, procedures and interventions are most effective to prevent, control and treat health conditions" for each patient, regardless of how much federal research is done. This is what doctors are for. This bureaucratic initiative is really laying the foundation for the eventual health care rationing to be imposed under the new Obama "universal" health care entitlement program, which is coming soon. I told you so, in previous columns.

To call this spending economic recovery stimulus, however, is an abuse of the English language.

Another abuse is to be found in the $4.2 billion provided to the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund, which provides the funds to local governments to purchase and rehab vacant housing due to foreclosure. The congressional report accompanying the stimulus bill states, "Up to $750 million may be used for a competition for nonprofit entities to enhance the funding included under this heading through capitalization of the funds." Reportedly, this funding is intended to be siphoned off to ACORN, the far-left, rogue, lawbreaking organization prosecuted across the country in the past couple of years for voter fraud. ACORN has also used violent intimidation tactics in the past to pursue its goals, and was heavily involved in housing programs in the past that led to widespread bad loans.

Another $79 billion is to go the states to maintain their runaway government spending, particularly for such spendthrift jurisdictions as California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. High state government spending is also not a source of economic growth.

Then there are other items in the "stimulus" package that may involve desirable government spending, but do not involve stimulating the economy, and should be subject to the normal budget process. These include $3 billion for health care prevention and wellness programs, such as childhood immunizations and other state and local public health programs, $2.4 billion for projects demonstrating carbon capture technology, $17 billion for Pell Grants, $1 billion for Technology Education, $1.9 billion for the Energy Department for "basic research into the physical sciences," $650 million for digital TV coupons to help Americans upgrade to digital cable television, $100 million to reduce lead-based paint hazards for children in low income housing, $400 million for "habitat restoration projects" of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $1.2 billion for summer jobs for youth, $2 billion for Superfund cleanup, and others.

Even the infrastructure spending in the stimulus bill will not produce economic recovery. When President Roosevelt directly employed workers in construction projects in the 1930s, unemployment had been as high as 25% for several years, and this seemed like the only way for some to get jobs. But unemployment today at 7.6% is below average for all postwar recessions, and it has only been over 7% for a few months.

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that only $26 billion of the $355 billion in the stimulus bill would be spent this year, and only $110 billion by the end of 2010. But that is not the real problem with infrastructure spending as a stimulus strategy. The bigger problem is that the government finances the spending by first borrowing the funding from the private sector, taking out of the economy what it later puts in, for no net gain overall. In the process, there is no change in the basic incentives governing economic activity, which do have the power to revive growth. And after the government make-work project ends, then what? Steve Entin best explained the fundamental economics of the problem yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, saying that to end a recession:

Ultimately, labor and capital must shift from declining industries and areas to expanding ones -- but intercepting people as they make the shifts and parking them in government projects for a year just delays the adjustment. And the debt and future taxes raised in the process become permanent burdens that shrink private output and income forever after.
A couple of weeks ago, I went over the data showing that even assuming Obama's claim that the stimulus package will create "or save" 3.7 million jobs, the cost would be over $200,000 per job. The government could just pay each worker $50,000 a year directly, and save taxpayers the rest. If we just count jobs actually created by the plan, then the cost is almost $400,000 per job. But under the analysis above, actually no new jobs will be created by this Keynesian stimulus bill on net.

What we want is private sector jobs privately financed in a booming economy, not make-work jobs financed by the public sector that end when the government gravy train ends. I have previously discussed what policies would get the economy booming again. Cuts in corporate tax rates, and in the tax rates on capital. Deregulation to allow the market to produce oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and more electricity, providing a low cost reliable energy supply for the rest of the economy, and a booming energy industry. A new strict price rule to guide monetary policy, focusing it only on maintaining stable prices rather than discretionary policy to guide the economy, which has only led to stock market and housing bubbles causing the current chaos. And restrained government spending to reduce government burdens on the economy.

These are the policies that Reagan adopted so successfully. But Obama does not include any of these proven policies in his stimulus bill, even though he claims he is only interested in what works, and not ideology, a dishonest spin.

Now what we have is not only a stimulus bill that will not work. What we have is a fraudulent bill that is not even focused on stimulus at all, but on runaway spending for liberal, big government spending programs, meaning more welfare, overgrown bureaucracy, pork, political payoffs, and waste.

Well, actually, some of those things will stimulate the economy. It just won't help for a decade or more in some cases. Things like Headstart will better prepare more kids for school so they don't end up becoming dropouts on welfare. It also frees up multiple single women that can't afford daycare services to actually got out and get a job.

Having better access to funding for college actually ups attendance if you can easily get it into the hands of those that need it. I know we have a new scholarship program here that pays 100% tuition for 2 years at the community college to those that have the academic merits and qualify for no other assistance. College enrollment skyrocketed and a lot of the recipients have graduated with a degree. Surely, an educated workforce is a good thing.

Part time work for seniors obviously stimulates the economy because it involves people, you know, working.

Speeding claims processing for SS disability creates new jobs because we'll probably need to hire more people to process the forms.

Giving Meals on Wheels more money stimulates the economy because they'll likely use it to buy additional food. Someone has to produce the food.

"Family planning services" prevents pregnancies which, of course, keep women out of work for some amount of time. The more they're at work, the more money they have to spend. Plus, it probably means hiring more people to provide such services or produce more condoms.

See? there's a lot of economic stimulus in it.

 

[Acanthus]

I want to see the fine print on all that. I dun want no tropical plants in the lobby that require a nursery service to come in once a month to tend to.



No. They're their own sovereign nations, let them use their gambling profits.



oh HEYULL no.



No. Let them burn like nature intended. It's a natural (and beneficial) course of events.



This is a joke, right?



um...lemme think about this...........NO



Definitely YES



No, duplicates the above. Combine them.



They're kidding, right?

They want us to pay money to some agency to support elderly folks who work for free?



Definitely YES



So every place has an MRI instead of just every other one, two miles apart? Lemme think on this......NO



I want to see the fine print....but I'm quite certain they don't need 642M



Oh HEYULL no



Um. NO.

*and*

HEYULL no.



Definitely YES



I want to see the fine print.



That seems awfully vague for something "very specific" and I smell the poo so I say, NO

If you want to see the fine print, go read the fucking bill.

I was summarizing.

You are grossly missing the point of these upgrades. Government buildings and hospitals will save 30% per year on energy costs. Paperless charts will save lives and reduce costs. Children will be able to get fantastic education. 800,000 new government vehicles will save agencies billions a year in fuel costs, and directly bolster the ailing auto industry.

 

[Sharon_]

If you want to see the fine print, go read the fucking bill.

What "fucking" good would that do? It changes several times a day.

They're changing it again right now (or trying to) as I type.

You are grossly missing the point of these upgrades. Government buildings and hospitals will save 30% per year on energy costs. Paperless charts will save lives and reduce costs. Children will be able to get fantastic education. 800,000 new government vehicles will save agencies billions a year in fuel costs, and directly bolster the ailing auto industry.

I am missing nothing. In your youth and inexperience of Life in general you are just not understanding.

We're broke. We have to borrow every single penny of this Stimulus package.

As you'll find out for yourself once you finish your student years and move thru life: when you're broke and have to take out a loan, you use it for /immediate/ needs....not long term goals or wish lists things like the above.

As for your claim of bolstering the auto industry--only some portions of it. Maybe. It can only hurt the used car re-sale industry to force a glut on an already oversized inventory.

Unless we're gonna park those at Camp Atterbury next to all those FEMA trailers they've got taking up their base rusting away in the Indiana weather.

 

[Sharon_]

Probably a little less than 90%, all richly deserved considering the attempts to play deficit hawk after doubling the National Debt over the past few years. $500 Billion in new deficit spending every year from 2003 to 2006 (nearly that much in 2002) and now they're bitching about 1 trillion over 10 years? How much is $500 Billion times 4? 5?

I'm looking for all of your rants about deficit spending before the elections.. Funny, I don't see any. Maybe you can point them out for me?

The only reason you would go looking for that, you silly little man, is if you were trying to prove some imaginary point in your head that I claim Congress is the synonym of Democrat.

 

[RightField]

I am missing nothing. In your youth and inexperience of Life in general you are just not understanding.

We're broke. We have to borrow every single penny of this Stimulus package.

As you'll find out for yourself once you finish your student years and move thru life: when you're broke and have to take out a loan, you use it for /immediate/ needs....not long term goals or wish lists things like the above.

As for your claim of bolstering the auto industry--only some portions of it. Maybe. It can only hurt the used car re-sale industry to force a glut on an already oversized inventory.

Unless we're gonna park those at Camp Atterbury next to all those FEMA trailers they've got taking up their base rusting away in the Indiana weather.

Good points.

 

[The_Trouvere]

PRINCETON, NJ -- The American public gives President Barack Obama a strong 67% approval rating for the way in which he is handling the government's efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill,
http://www.gallup.com/poll/114202/Obama-Upper-Hand-Stimulus-Fight.aspx

 

[Wok]

PRINCETON, NJ -- The American public gives President Barack Obama a strong 67% approval rating for the way in which he is handling the government's efforts to pass an economic stimulus bill,
http://www.gallup.com/poll/114202/Obama-Upper-Hand-Stimulus-Fight.aspx

Approval ratings aside, will it work?

 

[The_Trouvere]

Approval ratings aside, will it work?

Most Americans, including me, desperately hope so. The Literotica General Board wingnuts desperately hope not. They want millions more Americans to lose their jobs and homes. If that happens they will celebrate, and say, "We told you so."

 

[Wok]

Most Americans, including me, desperately hope so. The Literotica General Board wingnuts desperately hope not. They want millions more Americans to lose their jobs and homes. If that happens they will celebrate, and say, "We told you so."

Desperately hope not or are skeptical? I am very skeptical about this idea, because I did not see any results from the other bailouts and stimulus. Now how long before we see results from the other massive spending efforts?

 

[Acanthus]

What "fucking" good would that do? It changes several times a day.

They're changing it again right now (or trying to) as I type.




I am missing nothing. In your youth and inexperience of Life in general you are just not understanding.

We're broke. We have to borrow every single penny of this Stimulus package.

As you'll find out for yourself once you finish your student years and move thru life: when you're broke and have to take out a loan, you use it for /immediate/ needs....not long term goals or wish lists things like the above.

As for your claim of bolstering the auto industry--only some portions of it. Maybe. It can only hurt the used car re-sale industry to force a glut on an already oversized inventory.

Unless we're gonna park those at Camp Atterbury next to all those FEMA trailers they've got taking up their base rusting away in the Indiana weather.

The immediate need is jobs.

The bill is designed to create jobs now that also facilitate some kind of immediate or long term positive effect.

This is not a hard concept at all.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

The only reason you would go looking for that, you silly little man, is if you were trying to prove some imaginary point in your head that I claim Congress is the synonym of Democrat.

The reason I would look for that is to show that, like the GOP as a whole, you are selectively outraged by deficit spending.

When it was the "permanent majority" that borrowed more than twice the amount ($2.5 trillion vs. ~$1 trillion) over half the amount of time (from 2002 to 2006) that the current Stimulus package will be spent (some funds are expected to be stretched over a 10 year span) the economy was the "greatest story never told".

Now that the Democratic majority has to borrow to recover from the abject failure of "conservative" economic policy.. AGAIN.. it's suddenly a bad thing.

Nothing like a running double standard huh Sharon? It's easy to claim to be against all deficit spending NOW, but where were you and the rest of the "conservatives" when the National Debt doubled over the past 8 years?

 

[Wok]

Oh, another thing I am hearing is each job will cost over $200,000. Is this true or spin?

 

[Sharon_]

The reason I would look for that is to show that, like the GOP as a whole, you are selectively outraged by deficit spending.

When it was the "permanent majority" that borrowed more than twice the amount ($2.5 trillion vs. ~$1 trillion) over half the amount of time (from 2002 to 2006) that the current Stimulus package will be spent (some funds are expected to be stretched over a 10 year span) the economy was the "greatest story never told".

Now that the Democratic majority has to borrow to recover from the abject failure of "conservative" economic policy.. AGAIN.. it's suddenly a bad thing.

Nothing like a running double standard huh Sharon? It's easy to claim to be against all deficit spending NOW, but where were you and the rest of the "conservatives" when the National Debt doubled over the past 8 years?

I dunno about "the rest of the "conservatives"", I'm not the One True Discerner of Souls like you are; I was bitching about them wasting my damn money is where I was.

But don't let reality interfere with the little fantasy life you've got going on....or you're anti-Republican obsession.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Oh, another thing I am hearing is each job will cost over $200,000. Is this true or spin?

Likely that's being tossed around by taking the total amount of the package and dividing it byt he estimated number of jobs created. More than a bit disingenuous. Where did you hear this?

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

I dunno about "the rest of the "conservatives"", I'm not the One True Discerner of Souls like you are; I was bitching about them wasting my damn money is where I was.

But don't let reality interfere with the little fantasy life you've got going on....or you're anti-Republican obsession.

I see, you not a situational deficit hawk.

You just choose to speak out about it when the Democratic party is in power..

Got it.

"Getting back to your roots" as Vetteman put it. Which roots he didn't say.. Nixon? Eisenhower? Damn sure wasn't that drunken sailor on shore leave Reagan.

 

[Sharon_]

I see, you not a situational deficit hawk.

You just choose to speak out about it when the Democratic party is in power..

Got it.

You
Ignorant
'Tard

Look at my join date. I joined when the Democrats were already in power....unless you've forgotten or were ignorant of the fact that Congress controls the purse strings and Democrats have controlled Congress since 2006.

Therefore, any bitching I did prior to that date you would not have seen because....tada....I was not here.

WOT a dumbass.
[/QUOTE]

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Even while calling for the urgent passage of the $800 billion-plus economic stimulus package, the Obama administration and its liberal allies are laying the groundwork to neutralize criticisms should it fail.

"y the midterm elections we're probably not going to see an economy that's better than now," former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich conceded Sunday on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. "I mean, not that the stimulus program will have failed, but that the stimulus program, even if it succeeds, will not actually kick in. It will not get the economy better than it is now. Without the stimulus, the economy could be far worse in two years than it is now."

While he hasn't been quite as explicit as Reich, President Obama has adopted the same line of reasoning as part of his public relations offensive to boost support for the stimulus package: a failure to act will make things worse, even if acting may not make things better -- or at least not for a while.

President Obama is selling the plan as one that will "save or create" four million jobs, and he's continued to hedge his statements on the upside potential of the legislation while portraying the dire consequences of inaction.

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/02/10/preparing-for-failure

What this means is that if the economy is still in trouble as the 2010 elections approach, Democrats will argue that eight years of Republican rule left the country in such awful shape that Democrats will need more time to clean up the mess. If unemployment is in the 7 percent to 9 percent range, they'll say, without their policies, it would have been 12 percent, or perhaps higher.

While lawmakers are primarily interested in getting reelected, to liberal intellectuals who are constantly clamoring for more government spending, the failure of the stimulus package would represent another real-life example of the failure of Keynesian theory. That's why they've been criticizing the plan from the left.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has led the way by arguing that the stimulus package is far too small.

"f we look at the scale of the problem, the Congressional Budget Office says that we're gonna have a hole in the economy, insufficient spending to the tune of $2.9 trillion over the next three years," Krugman said on ABC's "World News" this Sunday. "And we've got a sort of $800 billion plan to cope with it. It's actually quite a bit on the low side."

Krugman has complained that the "sort of" $800 billion legislation has too many tax cuts, and that President Obama made too many concessions in an effort to win support of Republicans.

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

Oh, another thing I am hearing is each job will cost over $200,000. Is this true or spin?

That's the low end assuming 5 million "New" jobs...




It's straightforward math that even Dear Leader Jr. could manage to muddle through...

 

[Cap’n AMatrixca]

More Klein

In his Monday column, Krugman tore into the compromise legislation forged by centrists in the Senate. "I blame President Obama’s belief that he can transcend the partisan divide -- a belief that warped his economic strategy," Krugman snarled.

So for Krugman and other liberal ideologues, if the economy does not recover after an $800 billion government stimulus package, the excuse will be that Obama abandoned pure Keynesianism out of a misguided desire for bipartisanship.

But unlike Krugman, Democrats will have to face voters in the fall of next year, and if economic conditions do not improve, they'll be forced to explain how they ran up trillions in debt without having anything to show for it.

We told you so, ALWAYS BLAME REPUBLICANS and your myrmidons will follow suit, even if the Emperor is Buck Nekkid...

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

You
Ignorant
'Tard

Look at my join date. I joined when the Democrats were already in power....unless you've forgotten or were ignorant of the fact that Congress controls the purse strings and Democrats have controlled Congress since 2006.

Therefore, any bitching I did prior to that date you would not have seen because....tada....I was not here.

WOT a dumbass.

*nods*
Yup, and you just happen to know oh so much about the old timers here.
Pull the other leg sweety, it's got bells on.

 

[Sharon_]

*nods*
Yup, and you just happen to know oh so much about the old timers here.

I do?
What on earth are you babbling about now, you unfettered halfwit?

 

[ZoGoZo]

Five million jobs paying a quarter million dollars each!
Dayum - Where do I sign up to repair the infratructure?
Will there be overtime, sicktime, personal leave time, holidays, vacations, health benefits and retirement included.
Possibly a free lunch too?

 

[KingOrfeo]

And so it goes . . .

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Five million jobs paying a quarter million dollars each!
Dayum - Where do I sign up to repair the infratructure?
Will there be overtime, sicktime, personal leave time, holidays, vacations, health benefits and retirement included.
Possibly a free lunch too?

If that "rumor" is true, you only have to double your salary to make CEO level!

But remember —*you have to fuck up your biz' finances enough to fuck up the country's finances and then have the balls to ask for a bailout so you can get that end-of-year bonus you deserved in order to make that CEO salary level! Always stipulations in life, ZoGoZo!

 

[MeeMie]

Obama's only support comes from the same people who elected a president on empty rhetoric and rock-star packaging. Much of the same in this boring speech.


Obama spitting out blatant misrepresentations--Japan, by the way, lost a whole decade because they DID try to spend their way out of a recession, not because they didn't spend enough.


Barack Obama and the Democrats are delusional. The same people who chastised former President George W. Bush for reminding people about the threat of radical Islam in order to foster the passage of appropriations bills now use fear of perpetual recession to hastily compel unnecessary, unpopular, and potentially dangerous action.

Worse yet, Obama did so with the use of outright lies.

No pork or pet projects in this bill, Mr. President? That's a lie.

Bipartisan approach? Also a lie.

All of a sudden, we're going to have oversight? Another lie.

Stop it. Stop it now. We see what is happening with our money, and we do not like it.

Why else do our elected officials feel it necessary to take the telephones off the hook?

Why else did you pick and choose questions about steroids and criminal investigations of George W. Bush in tonight's Stimulus Eve press conference rather than address the pet projects, one by one?

We hear politicians like Barney Frank and Joseph Biden explain that it's the people that are the problem, or that the voters simply do not understand what's good for them.

The whole culture of lifting a hand for an easy handout instead of rolling up the sleeves and doing what comes difficult must stop now. This isn't a game anymore and, with each passing day, it is becoming more and more obvious that the only people who take this issue seriously are the very Americans who have been watching the erosion of their country and recognize Socialism in the making.

This, Mr. President, is medicine that we simply do not need and do not want.

And when we overdose, you and your party's leadership should be prepared to take complete responsibility and reap the miserable consequences.